Users complain iPhone clock bungles time change (AP) : Technet

Users complain iPhone clock bungles time change (AP)
Website critical of Myanmar regime hacked (AP)
Measuring Social Media: Who Has Access to the Firehose? (Mashable)
Online readership and ad revenue overtake newspapers (Reuters)
4G Wireless Speed Tests: Which Is Really the Fastest? (PC World)
China says 3,001 arrested for product piracy (AP)
Japan quake: live report (AFP)
Report: Internet Explorer Used to Exploit Windows MHTML Vulnerability (PC Magazine)
Chinese farmers go online to sell produce (AFP)
Spout app provides a pulsating flow of social networking (Appolicious)
Vodafone, Verizon to pool enterprise units: report (Reuters)
Dish Network and Lin Media agree, restore channels (AP)
Users complain iPhone clock bungles time change (AP)

Users complain iPhone clock bungles time change (AP)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 04:41 PM PDT

– Sun Mar 13, 7:41 pm ET

NEW YORK – It's hard enough to get your bearings when the time changes twice a year. It's all but impossible when your phone starts playing tricks on you, too.

Users of Apple's iPhone peppered Twitter and blogs with complaints Sunday when their phones bungled the one-hour "spring forward" to daylight savings time that went into effect overnight Saturday.

One user complained of missing church, another of almost missing yoga. One called her iPhone stupid and several just asked for help.

It turns out some users' phones fell back one hour instead of springing forward, making the time displayed on the iPhone two hours off.

This is just the latest clock woe for Apple's chic iPhone. A clock glitch prevented alarms from sounding on New Year's Day, causing slumbering revelers to oversleep. The devices also struggled to adjust to the end of daylight savings time back in November.

The glitch affected iPhone owners who subscribe for phone service through AT&T and Verizon.

Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Twitter was abuzz with a simple solution: Either shut down and restart the phone, or switch the phone to "airplane mode" and then back.

Apple has sold more than 100 million iPhones since they were first offered in 2007, dazzling customers with features that allow users to watch movies, play games, surf the Internet and get driving directions on a small, sleek device.

That these paragons of high tech have had trouble telling time led to dripping sarcasm Sunday, even from owners who didn't suffer any problems. Said one, via Twitter: "My iPhone correctly changed its clock. It's a truly revolutionary device."

Website critical of Myanmar regime hacked (AP)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 03:56 AM PDT

Measuring Social Media: Who Has Access to the Firehose? (Mashable)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 04:23 PM PDT

Christina Warren Christina Warren – Sun Mar 13, 7:23 pm ET

At SXSW 2011, I moderated a panel titled "Measuring Social Media - Let's Get Serious," with the goal of having a frank discussion about the realities, pratfalls and opportunities for individuals and marketers tasked with managing social media and measuring social media ROI.

During the Q&A session of the panel, a audience member from Porter Novelli asked Kevin Weil, product lead for revenue at Twitter, a pointed and direct question that cuts to the core of the conversation surrounding social media measurements: Who has access to the data?

In the case of Twitter, the company offers free access to its API for developers. The API can provide access and insight into information about tweets, replies and keyword searches, but as developers who work with Twitter -- or any large scale social network -- know, that data isn't always 100% reliable. Unreliable data is a problem when talking about measurements and analytics, where the data is helping to influence decisions related to social media marketing strategies and allocations of resources.

The question that the audience member asked -- and one that we tried to touch on a bit in the panel itself -- was who has access to this raw data. Twitter doesn't comment on who has full access to its firehose, but to Weil's credit he was at least forthcoming with some of the names, including stalwarts like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo -- plus a number of smaller companies.

The Problem With Limited Access

One of the companies that has access to Twitter's data firehose is Gnip. As we discussed in November, Twitter has entered into a partnership with Gnip that allows the social data provider to resell access to the Twitter firehose.

This is great on one level, because it means that businesses and services can access the data. The problem, as noted by panelist Raj Kadam, the CEO of Viralheat, is that Gnip's access can be prohibitively expensive.

For measuring services that can't afford (or aren't willing to pay) to pay for full access, the alternative remains using the API, which can yield inconsistent results. To be clear, I'm not criticizing Gnip or its pricing model. Rather, I want to highlight the realities about data access.

It's Not Just Twitter

The problems with reliable access to analytics and measurement information is by no means limited to Twitter. Facebook data is also tightly controlled. With Facebook, privacy controls built into the API are designed to prevent mass data scraping. This is absolutely the right decision. However, a reality of social media measurement is that Facebook Insights isn't always reachable and the data collected from the tool is sometimes inaccurate.

It's no surprise there's a disconnect between the data that marketers and community managers want and the data that can be reliably accessed. Twitter and Facebook were both designed as tools for consumers. It's only been in the last two years that the platform ecosystem aimed at serving large brands and companies -- platforms and tools like Salesforce.com, Buddy Media, Viralheat, Radian6, Vitrue and Involver -- have started to build out and address the needs of these business users.

We Need More Transparency for How to Access and Connect with Data

The data that companies like Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare collect are some of their most valuable assets. It isn't fair to expect a free ride or first-class access to the data by anyone who wants it.

Having said that, more transparency about what data is available to services and brands is needed and necessary.

We're just scraping the service of what social media monitoring, measurement and management tools can do. To get to the next level, it's important that we all question who has access to the firehose.

Photo courtesy of Jason Falls

Online readership and ad revenue overtake newspapers (Reuters)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 09:04 PM PDT

4G Wireless Speed Tests: Which Is Really the Fastest? (PC World)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 06:00 PM PDT

Mark Sullivan Mark Sullivan – Sun Mar 13, 9:00 pm ET

4G mobile broadband services and devices. But beyond all the buzzwords and hype, which companies can reliably provide next-generation speed?

We decided to find out by testing each of the four major national carriers--AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon--in 260 locations spread among 13 U.S. cities. We found some clear winners and losers, and some good news about wireless service in the United States as a whole. Here are our conclusions.

Wireless data speeds have soared: Since this time last year, the major wireless carriers, as a group, have increased their average download speeds for laptop-modem users by more than threefold, an apparent result of their urgent transition from 3G to 4G network technology. (We measured the best service we could get--3G or 4G--in each testing location.) Over laptop modems, the Big Four carriers now have a collective average download speed of roughly 3.5 megabits per second in our 13 testing cities, versus a nearly 1-mbps average download speed in those cities at the beginning of 2010, a remarkable improvement.

In our previous wireless-network performance studies, we measured the "reliability" of the data service, expressed as the percentage of tests in which we could obtain a good connection. But our test results show that network service has improved to the point where it's rare to find an unusable signal or no signal at all. So we have retired our reliability measurement--another testament to the dramatic improvements of the past year.

Verizon's 4G LTE is for real: Verizon's 4G LTE service, which is now in 38 U.S. markets, was widely available in 12 of our 13 testing cities. (We didn't go out of our way to test in areas served by Verizon's LTE network; we haven't changed our list of testing cities in the three years we've done these tests.) Our laptop-modem tests on Verizon clocked speeds that were far faster than those on competing 4G networks in the same tests (twice as fast as the second-fastest service, in fact). Verizon's network had an average download speed of roughly 6.5 mbps and an average upload speed of 5.0 mbps.

One important caveat: A relatively small number of Verizon customers currently use this new network. During our testing period, Verizon offered only two laptop-modem models that worked on the network, and none of the company's smartphones could take advantage of the new 4G speeds. The performance of Verizon's network could degrade as more people--and devices--connect to it.

And there's a downside to Verizon's 4G success. While the new 4G LTE network is lightning-fast, our smartphone-based tests suggest that the 3G CDMA network that most Verizon smartphone customers use today may actually be getting slower. The connection speeds we measured on our Verizon (3G CDMA) testing smartphone (a Motorola Droid 2) stayed the same or decreased in 10 of our testing cities since last year. And at the moment, those CDMA phones are all that's available to Verizon Wireless customers.

T-Mobile smartphones are fastest: Verizon may have the fastest network for laptops, but in our tests T-Mobile had the speediest results for smartphones. The T-Mobile HTC G2 we used for testing produced a 13-city average download speed of almost 2.3 mbps; that's about 52 percent faster than the second-fastest phone, Sprint's HTC EVO 4G, which had an average download speed of 1.5 mbps.

T-Mobile also impressed in our laptop-modem tests. Although only half as fast as Verizon's, T-Mobile's download speeds averaged almost 3 mbps in our tests--more than a threefold increase from the carrier's nearly 0.9-mbps average download speed in our January 2010 survey. With these laptop- and smartphone-based results, T-Mobile is proving to be a worthy challenger to its much-larger competitors.

AT&T continues to grow, but perhaps not fast enough: AT&T, the big winner in our January 2010 survey, has continued to ramp up throughput speeds at about the same pace, judging from this year's survey results. Its average download speeds in our laptop-modem tests grew 76 percent to a roughly 2.5 mbps average this year. But each of its competitors showed bigger jumps in download speeds over the past year, resulting in a third-place finish for AT&T in this year's speed results.

And AT&T's speed gains didn't translate well to our smartphone-based tests: The average download speeds we measured on our Apple iPhone 4 (1.4 mbps) increased only 15 percent over the speeds we measured on the same device in early 2010. However, AT&T intends to launch its own 4G LTE network later this year, a move that might tip the balance of the 4G speed race in its favor once again.

Sprint needs more 4G: In the cities where Sprint offers its 4G WiMax service, customers saw large speed increases over the past year. Sprint's average download speeds grew 170 percent to 2.1 mbps in our tests this year; the result would have been even better had the WiMax service been more consistently available throughout our test locations. But in cities such as New Orleans, Phoenix, and San Diego, where Sprint still relies on its 3G CDMA network for data service, download speeds have fallen, and remain well below the 1 mbps mark.

Next page: The test results, and our methodology

4G Speed-Test Results: Reading the Charts

In our study we tested both with representative smartphones and with a laptop employing a USB modem recommended by the carrier. The laptop-based testing, which uses the Ixia industry-standard testing software, provides more precise metrics than smartphone testing does. The laptop results are a good measure of the maximum performance possible on a network and are a satisfactory predictor of the speeds that the network will likely deliver to smartphones in a year or so.

We use Ookla, an FCC-approved Web-based speed test, to measure data rates on smartphones. Those results aren't as precise for a number of reasons: we must use different smartphones on different networks, and the results necessarily reflect the limitations of the smartphone's radio chipset, processor, and battery, and the test itself comes with a somewhat higher margin of error.

The charts below (click to see enlarged versions) list the cities in the leftmost column; moving rightward across the chart, you can see the speed averages and network latency times for each of the four wireless networks. Speeds are expressed in megabits per second (mbps). Latency (or the time it takes a single small packet of data to travel to a network server and back) is represented in milliseconds. We recorded download and upload speeds and latency times during our laptop-modem tests, and download and upload speeds in our smartphone tests. (For more details, see "How We Test.")

Speed-Test Methodology in a Nutshell

Our testing method is designed to approximate the experience of a real laptop-modem or smartphone user on any given day in their city. PCWorld's testing partner, Novarum, tested in each of our 13 cities during the first six weeks of 2011. At each of our 20 testing locations in each city, we took a "snapshot" of the performance of each wireless service, testing for upload speed, download speed, and network latency.

We looked for the fastest signal available for each carrier, searching first for 4G service and then, failing that, defaulting to the carrier's 3G service. In all, we ran 177,000 timed performance measurements from 260 testing locations in both urban and suburban environments. (See "How We Test" for additional information.)

Because we couldn't test every city in the country, we chose 13 cities that are broadly representative of midsize and large wireless markets in terms of size and topography: Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, New York, Orlando, Phoenix, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle. Because wireless signal quality depends to a large extent on variables such as network load, distance from the nearest cell tower, weather, and time of day, our results can't be used to predict exact performance in a specific area. Rather, they illustrate the relative performance of wireless service in a given city on a given day. Each speed number has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.

Next page: Verizon's new 4G network impresses, but its 3G network stagnates

Verizon's new LTE service smokes," says Novarum CTO Ken Biba, who helped test the network. The speeds tell the story: Verizon's 13-city average download speed for laptop modems is roughly 6.4 mbps, more than double the average download speed of our study's second-place finisher, T-Mobile.

And that average includes Verizon's result in Portland, the only city in our study that has no LTE service yet. Excluding Portland and looking at the performance of the LTE network only, Verizon's average download speed jumps to almost 7 mbps. Only in Orlando did the network average less than 5 mbps, coming in at roughly 4 mbps.

Upload speeds were just as impressive. Overall, Verizon's upload speeds averaged roughly 5 mbps in our 13 testing cities; average upload speeds reached nearly 9 mbps in San Diego and San Jose. LTE networks differ from older 3G networks in that they are designed to be symmetric--that is, the pipe going from the client device up to the network is as wide as the pipe going down to the client. In many of our 260 testing locations, the Verizon network delivered upload speeds that were faster than its download speeds. San Diego's average upload speed was faster than its average download speed.

Such fast upload speeds can make bidirectional apps like videoconferencing, online gaming, and, later, mobile Voice over IP (VoIP) work far more smoothly and look and sound better. In these apps, the data you send from your device is just as important as the data you receive.

Verizon's LTE service is available, latency times averaged just 114 milliseconds, significantly shorter than latency times in the HSPA+ and WiMax networks we tested.

Verizon's LTE network gives us a nice look at the future of wireless service, but only a minority of the operator's customers are using the network at the moment. Verizon currently sells only two models of USB modems that can tap the network, and the company isn't saying how many modems it has sold. New LTE phones aren't likely to arrive until this summer. So Verizon's LTE network currently handles nowhere near the number of devices it will have to support in the future.

"Verizon's new 4G network is a screamer, but that's partly because there's hardly anyone using it yet," says Craig Moffett, a senior analyst for Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

Verizon has been assuring skeptics that its network will remain just as fast when loaded up with devices. "We're very comfortable with the speeds we have said all along that our customers should expect: on average, 2 to 5 mbps on the uplink and 5 to 10 on the down," says Verizon Wireless spokesperson Thomas Pica. "That's on a fully loaded network.''

Moffett accepts that claim: "Even as [the network] begins to get loaded with the first smartphones this summer, it will probably keep the crown; as usual, theirs is the network to beat."

Still, at present, Verizon's smartphone subscribers rely on the company's 3G CDMA network. And that network, as demonstrated in our tests, actually became slower over the past year.

In our January 2010 survey of 3G service, we measured average download speeds of around 1 mbps in almost all of our testing cities (the 13-city average was 1.078 mbps) on our Motorola Droid smartphone. In those same cities this year, we saw very similar performance on our Droid 2 smartphone--again, most speed results were grouped around the 1-mbps mark, but the 13-city average download speed was 7 percent lower than last year's, at 1.008 mbps.

We found further evidence of a stagnant CDMA network in laptop-modem tests in Portland, where the Verizon LTE service is not available. We found an average download speed of 0.8 mbps in Portland last year, and clocked an average speed of only 0.55 mbps this year. This, of course, is lousy news for Verizon smartphone users, including those who recently bought the new Verizon iPhone.

Did Verizon build its impressive LTE network at the expense of further upgrades to its 3G CDMA network? Are the majority of Verizon subscribers paying the price for the blazing speeds enjoyed by just a few? Verizon chose not to comment on these questions.

Next page: T-Mobile's HSPA+ network offers competitive speeds

HSPA+ network service and phones as "4G" this year. Its ad campaign promoting the offering--you know, pretty girl, polka dots, poking fun at AT&T--has been hard to avoid. But our test results show that the carrier has been spending its money on far more than ad campaigns.

In short, T-Mobile's network is fast--far speedier and more reliable than it was just a year ago--and is indeed pumping out speeds that are competitive with the 4G services of the other providers. T-Mobile scored the fastest download speeds in our smartphone tests, and took a respectable second place behind Verizon Wireless in our laptop-modem tests.

T-Mobile more than tripled its download speeds in our smartphone tests since last year. In our smartphone tests using the T-Mobile HTC G2, we measured a 13-city average download speed of 2.3 mbps. T-Mobile's 13-city average a year ago (testing on an HTC G1) was 0.72 mbps. In Denver and Seattle, our T-Mobile phone averaged download speeds of more than 3 mbps. We were able to achieve a connection speed of more than 2 mbps in 52 percent of our tests.

Upload speeds also rose dramatically from last year, improving from a 0.134-mbps average last year to almost 1 mbps this year. The T-Mobile network produced average upload speeds above the 1-mbps mark in five of our testing cities: Baltimore, Boston, New York, Orlando, and Seattle.

T-Mobile also scored very well, and improved considerably, in our laptop-modem tests. The network averaged almost 3 mbps for downloads, with average results nearing the 4-mbps mark in New York, Orlando, and Seattle. Overall, T-Mobile's download speed in our 13 testing cities grew 226 percent from last year's (very 3G-like) 0.87-mbps average speed. Latency times averaged 173 milliseconds, not high enough to disrupt services like HD streaming video, but enough to degrade VoIP call quality slightly.

T-Mobile's competitors say that the HSPA+ technology it uses is not really 4G as T-Mobile claims. That may be technically true, but T-Mobile has proven that through systematic software enhancements it can deliver speeds that are competitive with the 4G networks of its rivals. Given the near-term upgrade path of HSPA+ technology, T-Mobile will likely be able to continue doing so for the next few years.

Next page: AT&T's HSPA+ network delivers 4G-like results, but the growth of data speeds is slowing

AT&T's HSPA+ service is definitely delivering 4G-like speeds. In our laptop-modem tests, the service produced an average download speed of 2.5 mbps in our 13 testing cities.

AT&T tells customers to expect download speeds of "up to approximately 6 mbps" in "key markets such as Chicago, Houston, and Charlotte [North Carolina]." Although we didn't see many 6-mbps scores in our laptop-modem tests, the network did hit download speeds of more than 2 mbps most of the time (64 percent of the time, to be exact). In fact, AT&T showed average speeds of roughly 2 mbps or greater in all of the 13 cities in which we tested. The network produced its fastest average download speeds in Chicago (3.3 mbps) and San Francisco (3.0 mbps).

AT&T's upload speeds were also strong, and similar to T-Mobile's. Upload speeds in our laptop-modem tests grouped around the 1-mbps mark, with Baltimore hitting a high of almost 1.4 mbps. This is a substantial step up from AT&T's 13-city average upload speed of 0.77 mbps in last year's tests, if not as dramatic an improvement as we saw in AT&T's download speeds.

AT&T's HSPA+ network produced latency times that were very similar to T-Mobile's. We measured an average delay of 169 milliseconds across 13 cities (T-Mobile's average was 173 milliseconds); we saw the highest average latency scores in San Diego (273 milliseconds) and San Jose (226 milliseconds).

Yet the growth of AT&T's data speeds has slowed. Last year we found that AT&T's data speeds had increased 72 percent over the previous eight months. This round, AT&T's speeds continued to grow over the past year, but not as rapidly, and certainly not as swiftly as its competition.

Consequently AT&T finished third in both our laptop and smartphone performance tests. In our laptop-modem results, AT&T trailed T-Mobile only slightly, but showed well less than half the download speed of Verizon LTE.

AT&T's slowing growth was even more apparent in our smartphone tests. In our early-2010 study, we measured a 13-city average download speed of almost 1.3 mbps on our AT&T iPhone 4, an improvement of 54 percent over the previous year. In this year's tests using the same phone, that number moved up to 1.5 mbps, an improvement of only 15 percent.

Some cities were better than others for AT&T smartphones: Chicago saw an average speed of 2.5 mbps while San Diego averaged only 0.8 mbps. Upload speeds improved dramatically, however, as our AT&T smartphone averaged 0.2 mbps in our 2010 tests and improved to just about 1 mbps this year.

AT&T believes that its new 4G smartphones (which weren't available at the time of our testing) and other devices will better utilize the speed of its network. "AT&T has introduced two 4G phones--the Motorola Atrix and the HTC Inspire--and has announced plans for about 20 4G devices this year," the company says in an e-mail. "Regarding network speed, thorough and expansive testing has concluded time and time again that AT&T operates the nation's fastest mobile broadband network."

AT&T's speed increases over the past two years can be attributed to software upgrades and infrastructure improvements. The operator completed a networkwide upgrade to HSPA 7.2 technology in late 2009, then announced earlier this year that it had finished another upgrade to HSPA+ technology, which it says allows for maximum theoretical download speeds up to 14.4 mbps. AT&T also has been investing large amounts of capital in fiber-optic lines for the movement of cellular data to and from the core of its network.

AT&T plans to launch its own 4G LTE network, as well as some 4G LTE smartphones to match, later this year.

Next page: Sprint's WiMax network offers good speeds, but inconsistent availability

Sprint offers its WiMax service in most of our test cities, actually connecting with the WiMax signal using our Sprint 3G/4G modem proved a hit-or-miss proposition. For instance, in San Jose, California, we measured download speeds of below (sometimes well below) 0.5 mbps in 8 of our 20 testing locations, a sure sign that no WiMax service was available in those places.

When the 4G service is unavailable, Sprint devices downshift to the company's 3G CDMA service, which, our laptop-modem tests suggest, may have slowed somewhat over the past year. Average download speeds slowed considerably in New Orleans (-24 percent), Phoenix (-31 percent), and San Diego (-24 percent)--the three cities in our tests where no WiMax is available.

Sprint says no such slowdown has occurred. "The 3G speed results you saw do not match what we see, and what the independent third party testing our network has reported," says Sprint spokesperson Stephanie Vinge-Walsh. "We haven't seen any significant degradation in 3G from last year to this year; our 3G speeds remain in the same range and at the same high dependability levels."

Sprint's 13-city average download speed of roughly 2.1 mbps represents a mix of CDMA and WiMax--3G and 4G--connection speeds. Overall, we recorded throughput speeds of more than 2 mbps in about half of our tests. In the majority of our test cities where WiMax was available, we noted (anecdotally) a roughly 50-50 chance of connecting to the service. There were exceptions: In Baltimore, Boston, and Chicago, the laptop-modem speed results reflected that the 4G network was available throughout the cities, with a few exceptions.

Of its 4G WiMax service, Sprint says users should expect average download speeds of between 3 mbps and 6 mbps, with peaks of more than 10 mbps. Our tests left us skeptical of Sprint's claim. We never saw a speed higher than 7 mbps, and we reached speeds of 6 mbps or more in only 5 of our 260 testing locations. The WiMax network produced a fair number of speeds within the 3-to-6-mbps window, but not consistently.

Sprint's upload speeds also tell the tale of a 4G service with spotty coverage. In many of our testing cities, we saw mainly two kinds of upload speeds: those of 1 mbps and above, suggesting that we had managed to hook into the WiMax service, and those that were below (sometimes well below) 0.4 mbps, suggesting that we had connected to the 3G CDMA service. Overall, Sprint's average upload speed remains stalled in 3G-land, at just 0.6 mbps.

Sprint's CDMA and WiMax networks, combined, produced the worst average latency score in our tests, at 214 milliseconds. Such network delay can begin to degrade the smooth operation of real-time applications like video chatting and VoIP calling.

The same disparities in Sprint's 3G and 4G networks showed up in our smartphone tests. In locations where WiMax coverage was spotty or nonexistent, average download scores were well below the 1-mbps mark. In cities where we could regularly connect with the WiMax network (Boston, Chicago, and New York), we saw download-speed averages of 2 mbps or greater.

Despite its overall speed gains, Sprint's service ranked last in both download speeds and upload speed in this year's laptop-modem tests. Had Sprint's WiMax network been widely available in all of our testing cities, the results would have been much different. The 4G network isn't slow, it's just not in enough places.

"Coverage has always been their Achilles' heel in 4G, and financial problems at [WiMax partner] Clearwire have slowed down their 4G network expansion nearly to a stop," says Sanford C. Bernstein's Moffett. "A year ago, they were first to market; now they're at real risk of falling behind."

The 4G Cometh

An important transition from 3G to 4G is under way and will continue raising the bar for fast mobile broadband. If speeds continue increasing at the rate they have been over the past year, 3G data service (and speeds) will soon become just an unpleasant memory. Our tests show, conclusively, that the 4G wireless service the carriers now offer--if it's available in your neighborhood--is already significantly faster than 3G service.

What will that mean? The 4G service will very likely speed up your consumption of Web-based content, and smooth the operation of services such as streaming video. In fact, 4G speeds are likely to let you do things with your mobile device that you simply couldn't do with a 3G connection, applications such as video chatting, online gaming, and VoIP calling. 4G is the first incarnation of wireless broadband that might finally free people from the desktop, allowing us to manage our online lives whenever and wherever we want.

Next page: How we test mobile network speeds

Test Your Smartphone Data Speed."

China says 3,001 arrested for product piracy (AP)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 02:50 PM PDT

– Sun Mar 13, 5:50 pm ET

BEIJING – Chinese authorities have arrested 3,001 people in their latest crackdown on rampant product piracy and seized fake or counterfeit medicines, liquor, mobile phones and other goods, officials said Sunday.

The campaign launched in October comes as Beijing faces pressure from the United States and other trading partners to stamp out product copying. China is a leading soure of fake goods despite repeated crackdowns, but Chinese officials have promised the latest enforcement will produce lasting results.

Communist leaders have given the new crackdown special prominence, publicly linking it to efforts to transform China from a low-cost factory to a creator of profitable technology by nurturing companies in software and other fields. China's fledgling software, music and other creative companies have been devastated by unlicensed copying.

"Intellectual property protection is essential for building an innovation-oriented country and achieving a shift from `China manufactured' to `China innovated,'" Li Chenggang, deputy director of the Commerce Ministry's law department, said at a news conference. He was joined by officials of China's commerce, intellectual property and other agencies.

Trade groups say illegal Chinese copying of music, designer clothing and other goods costs legitimate producers billions of dollars a year in lost potential sales. The American Chamber of Commerce in China says 70 percent of its member companies consider Beijing's enforcement of patents, trademarks and copyrights ineffective.

Businesspeople have expressed optimism about the latest effort because a rising Communist Party star, Vice Premier Wang Qishan, has been put in charge and an enforcement office set up in the Commerce Ministry.

A report distributed at Sunday's news conference said that goods seized in the latest crackdown include 26,000 mobile phones, some with phony Nokia and Apple labels, copies of Louis Vuitton bags and Rolex watches, automotive components, DVDs and clothing.

It said authorities shut down 292 websites selling counterfeit and fake goods.

Also Sunday, the official Xinhua News Agency said 23 people accused of producing fake medicine were detained in the central city of Jingzhou in Hubei province. It said they made more than 100 million capsules filled with sawdust and wheat flour and sold under the brand names of 201 different types of medication.

Xinhua said the medicines were sold by mail and over the Internet but gave no details of whether anyone was injured or which brand names were counterfeited.

Piracy is especially sensitive at a time when Washington and other Western governments are trying to create jobs by boosting exports. In 2009, the World Trade Organization upheld a U.S. complaint that Beijing was violating trade commitments by failing to root out the problem.

Rampant copying also has hampered Beijing's efforts to attract technology industries because businesspeople say companies are reluctant to do high-level research in China or bring in advanced designs for fear of theft.

Japan quake: live report (AFP)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 08:56 PM PDT

– 22 mins ago

HONG KONG (AFP) – 0352 GMT: A Malaysian newspaper has apologised after it triggered uproar with a cartoon depicting the popular Japanese icon Ultraman running away from an oncoming tsunami. The Malay-language Berita Harian drew heavy criticism, especially on social networking websites, after it published the cartoon on Sunday on its comment page.

0341 GMT: Tokyo stocks have fallen 6 percent in afternoon trading as investors reacted to the biggest earthquake in Japan's history.

0317 GMT: A large wave was spotted off Japan's coast Monday by a helicopter, but the meteorological agency said it had detected no sign of a new tsunami or a major quake that would have triggered it.

- Authorities had issued evacuation orders in some parts of the devastated coastline after the initial report and as seawater was seen retreating off Iwate and Aomori prefectures -- a phenomenon that occurs before tsunamis.

0311GMT: Japan nuclear plant operator says 7 missing, 3 injured after a blast at the facility.

0254 GMT: An explosion at the quake-damaged number 3 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 plant did not apparently breach the reactor, the chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said.

2040 GMT: Japan nuke plant operator TEPCO says reactor survived explosion, reports Jiji news agency.

0229 GMT: An explosion shook a quake-damaged Japanese nuclear power plant and plumes of smoke rose from the building, live television showed. Japan's nuclear safety agency said the blast, at the number 3 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 plant, was believed to be caused by hydrogen.

0214 GMT: The water level off Japan's coast has dropped 5 metres as tsunami nears, says state broadcaster NHK.

0212 GMT: Japan's central bank pumped another 5 trillion yen ($61 billion) into the short-term money market Monday after earlier injecting a record 7 trillion to boost confidence after twin disasters.

0208 GMT: Estimated three-metre (10 foot) tsunami seen off Japan by helicopter says Jiji news agency.

0200 GMT: As Japan struggles with a severe energy shortage, South Korea has said it will redirect some of its liquefied natural gas imports to Japan to help its disaster-hit neighbour, a Seoul official said.

- Japanese electricity operators have predicted it will take more than a month for Tokyo to offset shortages caused by damage to its nuclear power plants.

0156 GMT: The government has advised people not to go to school or work today due to widespread power cuts and transport disruptions, including in the capital Tokyo.

0150 GMT: The rescue of three senior citizens who had been trapped in a tsunami-swept car for 20 hours was shown on Japan's television network NHK.

0148 GMT: The latest quake off coastal Ibaraki prefecture -- one of many aftershocks since Friday's massive 8.9 quake -- had a 5.8-magnitude, said the US Geological Survey, which said the quake struck at a depth of 18 kilometres.

0113 GMT: A strong offshore earthquake struck 150 kilometres (90 miles) northeast of Tokyo Monday morning, shaking tall buildings in Japan's capital, but authorities did not issue a tsunami alert.

0054 GMT: A nuclear power plant damaged by Japan's deadly earthquake and tsunami is still in an 'alarming' state, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Monday according to Kyodo News.

0021 GMT: Japan's central bank injected a record 7 trillion yen ($85.7 bln) into the short-term money market Monday, in an attempt to build confidence after a devastating earthquake and tsunami.

0000 GMT: The yen briefly touched a four-month high against the dollar in early Asian trade on Monday with currency markets responding to Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Report: Internet Explorer Used to Exploit Windows MHTML Vulnerability (PC Magazine)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 07:31 AM PDT

David Murphy - PC Magazine David Murphy - Pc Magazine – Sun Mar 13, 10:31 am ET

A vulnerability in the way Internet Explorer parses MHTML content—a method for combining multiple file types and HTML content into a single file—is now targeting users as part of a "drive-by" browser attack.

It's called that due to the process by which attackers exploit the loophole: They'll create a malicious website, lure a user in, and then force the user's browser to run Javascript code. This code can access information from a user's browser or, worse, entice a user to install additional code that opens up his or her system to additional hacks.

"The end result of this type of vulnerability is script encoded within the link executed in the context of the target document or target web site," write Dave Ross and Chengyun Chu in Microsoft's Security Research & Defense blog.

The MHTML exploit was originally published on a website called WooYun, and Microsoft acknowledged the issue in a January security advisory. A recent update to the advisory by Microsoft—later verified by Google—indicates that the exploit is now being put to use.

"We've noticed some highly targeted and apparently politically motivated attacks against our users," writes members of the Google Security Team in a blog post. "We believe activists may have been a specific target. We've also seen attacks against users of another popular social site."

Neither Google nor Microsoft went into any additional detail as to the exact kinds of users the exploit has targeted. Microsoft has itself released a "Fix It" solution to combat the issue, but there's been no timeline set for a full-fledged patch to the browser.

According to Qualys' Wolfgang Kandek, the attack only works against those running Internet Explorer—and Microsoft has verified that statement by noting that the attack actually works due to a specific Windows vulnerability, making one's version of Internet Explorer irrelevant as part of a fix. However, a quick fix beyond the downloadable "Fix It" pack is to switch over to an alternate browser for the time being—Chrome or Firefox to name a few.

"Firefox and Chrome are not affected in their default configuration, as they do not support MHTML without the installation of specific add-on modules," Kandek writes.

Microsoft itself has previously posted a test scenario that users can run to determine whether their browsers support the MHTML vulnerability. All that one needs is access to a web server in order to upload a single .MHT test file. For unprotected browsers, accessing the file will result in a little pop-up box that says, "hello," whereas protected versions of Internet Explorer will instead receive a notification that the site is trying to "communicate with your computer" in a method disallowed by one's security settings.

Chinese farmers go online to sell produce (AFP)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 02:03 PM PDT

by Allison Jackson Allison Jackson – Sun Mar 13, 5:03 pm ET

BEIJING (AFP) – For years, Wang Yulan and her husband drove their three-wheeled vehicle to an outdoor market near Beijing to sell broccoli, peppers, eggplants and tomatoes grown on their small plot of land.

Now, thanks to the web, they don't even have to leave their living room.

Two years ago the couple bought a computer and joined a growing number of Chinese farmers selling their produce online, giving them access to customers around the country and boosting their meagre income.

"A broad market is opened once you get on the computer," Wang, 55, told AFP as she logged on to agricultural trading website aptc.cn with the help of her niece.

"The Internet is convenient. The customers first place an order, we prepare the items, and they then send a van to pick them up."

Since Wang and her husband Liu Shujin, 66, started trading their vegetables online, the couple's income has more than doubled to between 20,000 and 30,000 yuan ($3,000-4,500) a year and life has become easier.

"We've stopped going out to sell vegetables and just stay at home," said Wang, who has suffered from a debilitating knee problem for 30 years.

The plight of China's millions of farmers, whose incomes are well below those of urban residents, has been high on the agenda of the country's annual session of parliament, which ends Monday.

Top leaders, worried about the growing rich-poor gap and its potential to spark social unrest, have vowed to boost development in rural areas and farmers' earnings.

Average rural incomes reached 5,919 yuan a year in 2010 compared with urban incomes of nearly 20,000 yuan, according to official statistics.

"We will focus on increasing the basic incomes of low-income people in both urban and rural areas," Premier Wen Jiabao said on March 5 in his speech to open the parliamentary session.

In 2006, state-owned China Mobile launched Nongxintong, or Farmers' Information Service, which provides timely market prices, weather forecasts and government policy via mobile text messages, a phone hotline and the web.

The service also allows farmers, like Yang He in the eastern province of Anhui, to advertise their products online.

"It is cheap -- it only costs a few yuan a month," Yang, who grows flowers, told AFP.

"I just need to send a message to the China Mobile website in Anhui, and then the message will be posted to the supply and demand board. If people see my message, they will contact me."

Nongxintong project manager Liu Jing said the "convenient and cheap" service, which costs farmers as little as two yuan (30 cents) a month, had three million subscribers in the southwestern mega-city of Chongqing alone.

He did not have a nationwide figure.

"We want the service to be affordable, successful and beneficial to the farmers," Liu told AFP.

Last month, the commerce ministry signed an agreement with the Agricultural Bank of China and China Mobile to "jointly develop information infrastructure for rural commerce", the ministry said in a statement sent to AFP.

As farmers struggle to make ends meet, Internet and mobile phone technology can help them reach markets where their goods are in high demand, analysts say.

"If they (the government) can get more information disseminated, the market will operate more efficiently and that can help relieve inflationary pressures," Ren Xianfang, an analyst at IHS Global Insight, told AFP.

Without this information, "farmers don't know where to supply their goods", she said.

Wang, her face weathered from years tilling their 0.3-hectare (0.7-acre) plot of land, said: "Before, it was hard to sell vegetables. If we couldn't sell them all they would go rotten and we would have to throw them out."

Despite rising incomes, farmers still face an uncertain future, with poor access to healthcare services and land grabs on the rise as developers seek to cash in on the nation's property boom.

Wang said the lease on their land expires in 2013 and she is worried the government will not renew the contract, which they have had for the past 12 years.

"We are really afraid -- if we don't have our land, what do we do? We have no way to live," said Wang, whose 25-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with lung cancer and is at home because the family cannot afford treatment for her.

Stability-obsessed leaders, aware of the potential for land disputes and other grievances to spark trouble, have sought to calm farmers' fears.

"We need to... genuinely protect their legitimate rights and interest concerning land they contract to work and the land on which their homes sit," Wen said in his "state of the nation" speech.

Spout app provides a pulsating flow of social networking (Appolicious)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 11:52 AM PDT

Vodafone, Verizon to pool enterprise units: report (Reuters)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 09:05 AM PDT

– Sun Mar 13, 12:05 pm ET

LONDON (Reuters) – British mobile operator Vodafone and its U.S. partner Verizon plan to combine parts of their businesses and share some equipment costs, according to a report in Britain's Sunday Times.

The report said the pair were examining plans to pool parts of their enterprise divisions that serve multi-national clients and that the two companies were considering buying network equipment together.

Vodafone is close to striking a deal to extract a dividend from Verizon Wireless, its U.S. joint venture with Verizon, for the first time since 2005.

Vodafone was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Rhys Jones; Editing by Louise Heavens)

Dish Network and Lin Media agree, restore channels (AP)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 12:05 PM PDT

– Sun Mar 13, 3:05 pm ET

NEW YORK – Ending a dispute that caused 27 local television stations in 17 cities to go dark for eight days, Dish Network and television station owner Lin TV Corp. agreed to contract terms Sunday.

Terms of the agreement were not released, and neither side has said how many viewers were affected.

The two sides failed to agree before a March 5 deadline. Since then, Dish Network subscribers in 17 cities including Indianapolis, Providence, R.I., and Buffalo, N.Y., were no longer able to watch local affiliates of networks such as CBS, Fox, NBC, ABC and the CW.

Both companies had blamed each other for pulling the broadcast signals.

Disputes over the fees cable and satellite providers pay to broadcast stations to include their signals in their channel lineups are becoming increasingly common.

In October, a breakdown in negotiations between Cablevision Systems Corp. and News Corp.'s Fox network left 3 million Cablevision subscribers in the New York area without Fox programming for 15 days — including through two World Series games — after the broadcaster pulled its signal.

In January, Time Warner Cable and Sinclair Broadcast group came to terms on an agreement just hours before a midnight deadline that would have cut local service to 4 million subscribers in places like Buffalo, San Antonio and Greensboro, N.C.

Lin is based in Providence. Dish Network Corp. is headquartered in Englewood,Colo.

Users complain iPhone clock bungles time change (AP)

Posted: 13 Mar 2011 05:29 PM PDT

– Sun Mar 13, 8:29 pm ET

NEW YORK – It's hard enough to get your bearings when the time changes twice a year. It's all but impossible when your phone starts playing tricks on you, too.

Users of Apple's iPhone peppered Twitter and blogs with complaints Sunday when their phones bungled the one-hour "spring forward" to daylight savings time that went into effect overnight Saturday.

One user complained of missing church, another of almost missing yoga. One called her iPhone stupid and several just asked for help.

It turns out some users' phones fell back one hour instead of springing forward, making the time displayed on the iPhone two hours off.

The glitch affected iPhone owners who subscribe for phone service through both AT&T and Verizon.

Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Twitter was abuzz with a simple solution: Either shut down and restart the phone, or switch the phone to "airplane mode" and then back.

That these paragons of high tech have had trouble telling time led to dripping sarcasm Sunday, even from owners who didn't suffer any problems. One whose clock adjusted just fine called the iPhone revolutionary.

Technet

Sunday, March 13, 2011